The seemingly unstoppable flow of quality titles from Vault Comics continues as we check out Jon Tsuei and Audrey Mok’s Sera and the Royal Stars, which tells the tale of a brave princess as she seeks out hidden deities in the hope of saving her kingdom. But can these ‘Royal Stars’ shine brightly on the shelves for readers to see?

Publisher: Vault Comics
Writer: Jon Tsuei
Artist: Audrey Mok (Art), Raul Angulo, Karina Plaja (Colours), Jim Campbell (Letters)
Price: £2.49/$3.99 each at Comixology

For Sera, Princess of Parsa, challenge and responsibility is nothing new. As she helps lead her father’s forces into war with her uncle’s forces, Sera receives a vision from the deity Mitra with new instructions that may forever change her kingdom. Now, while her kingdom and her family needs her leadership, Sera must leave to take up her fallen mother’s quest to find the fallen stars who are now trapped on earth or face the death of her people and all that she loves.

Jon Tsuei presents readers with very captivating tale in Sera and the Royal Stars, as the story immediately draws you in as something that will be really interesting. Almost from the beginning, this series offers readers something which resonates a sense of an immensely epic story, in a similar vein to the Fellowship of the Ring, while the reveal of these eponymous ‘Stars’ of the series also imbues a certain similarity to the J. Michael Straczynski’s popular Thor run.

Meanwhile, Tsuei also fills this series with a great deal of interesting characters, from the unique stars as each is introduced, to the very different family members of the royal court and even the mysterious hooded siblings who look set to become the long term antagonists. However, chief among them is definitely lead Sera, who feels immensely compelling to follow as she comes across very realistically during the various obstacles of her journey.

On the art duties for this title, artist Audrey Mok puts in some solid work, presenting a style which feels reminiscent of DC’s early 2000 house style, in particular the work of Rags Morales. In fact, this similarity is further enhanced by the colours of Raul Angulo and Karina Plaja, whose work combined with Mok perfectly resembles Morales own work with Mike Bair on Identity Crisis. That said, this work is still very much its own entity, as Mok’s soft lines and Angulo and Plaja’s bold colours in scenes like the Stars reveals (which themselves are the breakout panels of the title) help to sell the epic and magical feel of this title.

Vault continue to bring out fantastic comics time after time and Sera and the Royal Stars is certainly no exception. With an enjoyable epic story beginning coupled with art that more than matches the magical theme and vibe it gives its readers, Tsuei, Mok and company’s new title is definitely a must for any reader who loves their fantasy.